Australian Antarctic Division: Leading Australia’s Antarctic Program

30 July 2010

This week at Davis continues the theme of our blockbusting epic and recent entry into the Antarctic Winter Film Festival, "Fitness Month" (available at youtube, see Fitness Month)

A question that isn't asked that often, but should be, is how do we keep our beautiful beach-bodies buffed over the long dark cold winter months, and prevent them from becoming beach ball-esque.

Given that we have a top Australian chef, Kim, providing us with gourmet fare every meal, it is a fierce battle, with the results weighed every month during medicals, to the chagrin of some, and delight of others. Here's some photos showing our fitness conscious expeditioners hard at it.

Luckily for us all, we've got our own personal trainer/ motivator/ and fitness guru Matt "The party" Azzopardi. Matt has drawn up fitness plans (The Azzopardi Premium Hypertrophy Workout) for half the station, fine tuning them as the season progresses and the weights increase. But wait, there's more. He's been coaching us in the gentle art of boxing, is regularly seen at the climbing wall, and sets us "challenges" weekly that are supposed to increase our VO2 max by 60%, but usually result in collapse on the floor in a sweaty heap, and difficulty ambulating independently for several days afterwards. Apparently it's good for us.

But it's not all inside work. Andy Ballinger regularly takes his sled for a walk, Chris George was seen ice skating at Watts Hut last weekend (the triple axle with a backward toe off was an incredible sight) and there's a regular run down Dingle road to Law Cairn, a 12 km round trip, usually in temperatures of -20 degrees C. Cross country skiing, one of the most intensive aerobic activities known to man, also has a keen following.

With the increasing light, not only have our energy levels increased, we've had some incredible sunsets. Nacreous clouds – they're the visually impressive but ozone gobbling ones – form finely-shaded pastel layers (top two thirds of the photo below). You know you've been in Antarctica a while when not only can you recognise nacreous clouds, you get excited by them, but also sad at what they're doing to the ozone layer. Please also note the solar pillar, caused by refraction through a layer of ice crystals. These also gave us a rainbow, or rather an "icebow", which is probably the edge of an enormous sun dog.

And finally, some iceberg shots from Pete Hargreaves to share with you all, proving once again that we are in the most beautiful place on earth (and as Sir Attenborough would put it, so spectacular, it can be seen from space). Extra points for naming the face in the iceberg.